Only a small portion of their survey specifically addressed health and safety, but that which did provides some troubling findings, including that 12% of their respondents experienced a serious work-related injury during the last three years. Moreover the low-wage workers’ responses reinforce what we’ve read before on the experiences of injured workers:

“43 percent of seriously injured respondents reported that they were required to work despite their injury”;

“an additional 30 percent said their employer refused to help them with the injury”;

“13 percent were fired shortly after their injury”;

“10 percent said their employer made them come to work and sit around all day”;

The NELP report offers a number of recommendations, from updating labor laws themselves to strengthening enforcement of them. It suggests a common sense approach:

“Increase the reach and effectiveness of enforcement by partnering with immigrant worker centers, unions, service providers, legal advocates, and where possible, responsible employers. Government alone will never have enough staff and resources to monitor every workplace in the country on a regular basis. Community partnerships can provide teh vital ‘ears on the ground’ to identify where workplace violations are most concentrated…”

This is one of the strategies used in New York State by Patricia Smith, the pending nominee for the Solicitor of Labor, who’s confirmation is now actively opposed by the ranking member of the Senate HELP committee, Michael Enzi (R-WY).

“…conducting more strategic enforcement we have changed the culture of the department through partnering with unions, labor and immigrant groups to target our enforcement efforts to keep our most vulnerable workers from being exploited. “

Ms. Smith devised some creative and aggressive approaches to ensure that workers are paid their legally earned wages. These are the kind of programs needed to address the abuses highlighted in the NELP report, and why Senate leaders should buck-up and insist that Mr. Obama’s choice for Solicitor of Labor be confirmed.